


In Sickness and In Health

by CinematicGlow



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/M, otp prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 20:04:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5599090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinematicGlow/pseuds/CinematicGlow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You would think Alexander would be the one to work himself sick, but when Eliza is the ill one he'll push through ANYTHING to be by her side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Sickness and In Health

Eliza wakes in the middle of the night, shivering even beneath her piles of blankets. The hour is clearly late, as told by the quiet and lack of sunlight, but it is not completely dark. The candlelight flickers, and even its soft glow shoots stabbing pains into Eliza’s aching head.

“Shhh, shhh, just lie down, Eliza. You need to rest,” a familiar voice admonishes her when she tries to sit up and look around for who has a light on this late at night.

“Alexander!” Eliza croaks. It was meant to be more of a happy exclamation, but the soreness and dryness of her throat left the name weak and quiet.

“Shhh,” her husband repeats, gently caressing her arm before moving away. Eliza pushes herself into a sitting position, more slowly this time, to see Alexander pouring water from a pitcher on a table against the wall.

“Here,” he says, sitting on the bed beside her and handing over the cup. With a grateful murmur she takes it and sips, feeling the cool water sliding down her parched throat and soothing it.

“Alexander,” she tries again. His name comes out stronger this time, and he smiles to hear it. Eliza smiles, too, gazing at him. Her body aches, and even the small effort of sitting up and drinking a glass of water has taken a lot out of her. But she does not have to move at all for Alexander to know what she wants; he takes her hand and holds it, gently running his thumb over her knuckles.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you for ages,” Eliza tells him. Her voice is stronger after the water, but still hoarse, a croaking whisper. “You’ve been so busy, with the election…or was it a defendant, this time? I can’t quite remember.” Her head is spinning with fever.

“Don’t worry about that, I’m here now. I’ve got everything taken care of with that,” he adds, a boastful gleam in his grin. He probably keeps talking, saying how incompetent his political rivals are or something, but Eliza just lets the words wash over her without extracting any meaning. Concentration does not come easily to a brain fogged in fever.

When her mind returns to the present, she is more slumped down among her pillows. Alexander’s cool hand is pressed to her forehead. She leans into it a little and closes her eyes, on purpose this time, in that small amount of relief to her pounding headache.

“Thank you,” she says, so softly Alexander almost doesn’t hear it. Then she adds, even more softly if possible, “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” he whispers back. He pushes some of Eliza’s hair behind her ear with the hand that isn’t already on her forehead. “Best of wives and best of women…”

Eliza sighs and nestles herself against her husband’s side. She still feels miserable, but it is bearable with her husband there with her. More bearable than it has been for some time, she feels.

“Get some rest,” Alexander tells her. He does not let her go, though, only moves to let her lay against him a little more comfortably.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” she says. She opens her eyes to see him looking at her with confusion on his face.

“Of this illness,” she explains. “I’m sure you need to get back to work…and I’ll probably be laid up here a bit longer. But I’ll see you on the other side of it.”

Her husband smiles at her with a tenderness in his eyes so deep it resembles pain.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” he repeats, “But I’m not going anywhere yet. Betsey, get some sleep, okay?”

Eliza does not respond, except to nestle in closer to him and close her eyes, allowing her to fall back into the soft muffling darkness of unconsciousness.

 

***

 

When Eliza awakes, the room is bright and empty. Not even a faint scent of smoke is left from the candle Alexander used to keep watch over her last night—a fair bit of time must have passed while she was asleep.

Eliza’s head feels clearer than it has since she first took ill, though it still aches feebly. The piles of blankets that could not keep her warm in the night are too hot now, and she pushes layers of them aside with an arm that no longer feels as weak and achy as before.

_It was kind of Alexander to stay up with me last night,_ she muses, her heart still filled with the warmth of his nearness last night. _I would have expected him to be too busy to take a break…_

_Or rather,_ she realizes sadly as reality comes crashing back around her in the wake of her fever, _He can’t possibly have sat up with me. Alexander is dead, has been dead for years._

She smooths the blankets sadly over her lap.

Was it a dream, then, that he was here and caring for her? A memory, confused for reality in the confusion of her illness? Or just a wish, filled in as if it were a real memory?

Eliza looks around the room she had shared with her husband, noticing the marks he had left on it. On the table, where last night Alexander had poured water from a pitcher, now sits the last letter he ever wrote to her, on the morning before he went off to his death.

_Best of wives and best of women._

What was it they had said to each other last night? Looking up towards the heavens, Eliza quietly thinks those words to Alexander once again.

_I’ll see you on the other side._

As she gets up to face the day, she imagines that she hears the words repeated back to her in his voice.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the prompt from the otpprompt.tumblr.com: "Imagine Person B of your OTP is in the hospital. They have a horrible fever, and spend most of their time asleep. In the middle of the night, they wake up to find Person A seated next to them, holding their hand. Person B is over joyed, as they haven’t seen Person A in what feels like forever. Person A helps Person B back to sleep, but by the morning Person B is alone again. Only when their fever breaks do they remember that Person A died years ago, and their return was just a fever dream."
> 
> Because someone else wrote it as lams and there was clearly a niche to be filled for Alex/Eliza (I don't know what their ship name is, if any)


End file.
